Coats and Canes
by Tokyo Sunset
Summary: Thirty years after the job ended, and old, sick man visits and old friend.


**A/N: **Let's try a cheery little thing, said I and failed miserably.

* * *

He never liked this small hallway.

Too inhuman.

The journey to the centre of nowhere began as he entered the large, glass door. It would flap behind him, finally coming to a halt. They were extremely heavy, possibly heavier than he remembered. Or maybe it was the strength that had left him a while ago that made him believe that? Either way, after pushing them, he shook his gloved hand, that had little sensation in it left; just enough to feel fatigue.

Several steps forward; they echoed. He would proceed to walk towards the receptionist's desk, where she would probably be procrastinating. Sometimes she would chew her pink bubblegum, watching the balloon stretch under her nose and pop. She would then proceed to chew on the rubbery wad of sugar and color. Sometimes she would listen to her Discman, either Nirvana or Radiohead crashing out of them. She would bob her head or file her nails as she hummed the only Nirvana song she knew. The others came in as white noise. This time, the man was fortunate enough to catch her doing absolutely nothing. She leaned on the palm of her left hand, looking bored out of her mind. One look at the man and she huffed. She couldn't possibly be bothered to work on a Tuesday, of all days.

"Name?" She asked, taking a small, striped Stadler pencil and opening her visitation log. Her voice was hoarse and stretched out into forever. The man smiled at the girl, whose brisk personality and almost raven black hair reminded him of a woman who stole his heart back when he was a young man and wandered the streets of Paris, looking for food and work. Her icy-blue eyes shot up at him, and he realized that he had made too long of a pause.

"Chaput," he said to her. "Adrien Chaput."

She smacked her lips together. The name was scribbled on the note in several quick motions.

"Room and resident?"

"Two-nineteen. Mundy."

"Uh-huh."

The graphite atop the pencil was broken once it was carelessly discarded.

If only she wore blue that day, he would have been sure it was Winifred that glared at him with that look of contempt.

He thanked her and proceeded on.

He hated this hallway. This was the unearthly, inhuman part. So drab, so dreary… It wouldn't have been a problem for him if he didn't have to hear every movement he made. Being heard meant death where he was from. And everything could be detected in this sterile madness. A stench of ammonia filled the room until it was almost suffocating. In its hollowness, one could ever hear the solution of the IV drop slowly passing the little tubes and falling into the veins of the poor bed-ridden patients. A few old men coughing, a woman scratching the door and wanting to see her husband that died a little over forty years ago. He hated this little symphony these four walls created. It seemed like Limbo, and in some other universe, it probably was. Slowly, his hand caressed his stubbly cheek, which for a second reminded him of his beloved balaclava. He sighed.

Just then he stopped and looked at the beige door, the numbers _219 _gilded on it. Gilded! And the other numbers were black. What joy. It was a shame to know that the inhabitant of the room would never know they were there.

Adrien knocked.

"Come in," said a voice from the inside in a cheery tune, slightly ironic in a way, since there was nothing yet to be cheery about. Adrien huffed and pushed the door open.

Were they always this heavy?

To the slight relief of his nostrils, the smell of urine and iron was replaced with the smell of urine and cigarette smoke. The door closed and he was captured inside.

The room was a plain one; a messy bed with a coat atop it (a coat that Adrien did not recognize), a wide window that showed the most beautiful view of the park, the bright blue sky, the children merrily frolicking in between the high, lush trees (again, a waste), a small desk with medication and photographs aligned, and in the middle of the room, an old crone.

He held a cheap cigarette in his liver-spotted hands that shook and had trouble staying in their original shape without falling to his side like bits of string. His hair was a messy pile of gray, unlike the visitor's, which was only showing a very sophisticated nuance of salt across his peppery base. Like his, Mundy's chin was filled with small, sharp hairs. Every bone stuck out, his red shirt was falling around him, shrouding him inside like a cocoon. It was quite possible to mistake this man for a bag of dusty bones.

"Adrien," he said, taking a drag and making the smoke billow as he blew it out his nose. "You little shit."

"You… had something to show me?"

A shit-eating grin stretched over his long face. He took one finger and pointed towards the chocolate-colored coat that hung in creases and ruffles over the bed. Adrien looked at it with wide eyes.

"Take that coat," Mundy said and Chaput was happy to oblige.

Already he knew what it was. He took the fabric in his hands and moved it across his fingers. The same rough quality, the same tent-like design that was so popular at that age… Just to make sure, he looked at the label. A sigh of exhaustion left him when he heard Mundy's croaked laughter.

"Ya recognize it?"

"I recognize the type."

"What's on the label?"

The man smirked as he read it.

_"Machine washable."_

Mundy was not amused, and he expressed his dissatisfaction by muttering a couple of profanities. Adrien had to comply with the old man's wish. His eyes narrowed at the faded writing, like ink on yellowed paper that had been smeared before it had a chance to dry.

"Alright, alright… _Serge Chaput."_

Mundy shouted in delight, clapping his hands once and keeping them cupped. He laughed, but his laugh became a strong, tedious cough that he had to soothe by dragging on his cigarette. Adrien missed smoking. He considered asking this poor man for a smoke, even knowing that he wouldn't allow it.

"I knew it! I knew it! Ever since you told me yer family had that coat factory, I had to see it myself! And I found it!"

"Indeed you did," Adrien replied, perfunctorily folding away the small fragment of the crushed textile empire that he was to inherit. "Two things run in my family; coats and syphilis. The former is not known about as much as the latter. You must have been looking for this for quite some time…"

The laughter suddenly stopped. Chaput furrowed his brow as the corners of his lips dropped downwards.

"I apologize. Horrible choice of words…"

"'S alright, I get that a lot," Mundy said, taking a small white cane in his left hand with a smirk. "More so from you than anyone else, I admit, but still… Nah, I'm just gonna pretend that you meant _searching _and not… not _seeing_."

The two stayed in terrible silence for a couple of moments. The blind former marksman tossed the cigarette into the small trashcan in the corner of the room. It plummeted in quite nicely. The first two attempts he had made at that, he managed to burn down his dormitory. Luckily, after he learned to sharpen his other senses, he found that he was quite well off like this. Though he had to retire early, and though he never got over that, he was still pleased with how his life worked out. He was more or less independent; he could just walk out of this room and into the streets whenever he wanted. And that horrible grunge creature that sat at the reception, stuffing her ears with all those screeching cords all day long would never know it.

He never knew what she looked like. Chaput told him, during his visits. Deciding that there had been enough silence, Mundy spoke up.

"Nah, it's alright. I couldn't hold a grudge. Been too many decades for me to be mad still. Nah, I'm over it. I still knock a couple things over, but nothing drastic. Nothing I can't shake. See, me job was more than just seeing. It was feeling, estimating. I woulda still be employed if it weren't for those hippies fightin' for my rights… well me fucking right was to fuckin' work, how 'bout that?" He asked in a hollow tone, wringing his hands over and over again. He slouched, and proceeded to add to that hunch on his back.

Chaput nodded, sighing and taking a small bottle of pills from his jacket. He felt the cigarette case under his fingers, the silvery rectangle that now held candy for his grandchildren.

Mundy's ears perked up as he heard him open it.

"Seven twists, can't be yer insulin… 'sides, you get that in shots, now. Heart medication?"

"No," Adrien said, shaking two pills in his hand and tossing his head back to take them. "It's for my lungs."

"Ah."

"Honestly, who knew cigarettes could be bad for you?"

"I didn't."

Suddenly, Mundy felt incredibly bad for smoking when he came. The white cane tapped over the floor.

There is an expression in Eastern Europe about living life to the fullest. Living life with full lungs. The Frenchman often made jokes about him only living life with half-full lungs, which could have been humorous if it didn't have some certain literal implications.

"How's Winifred?" Mundy asked.

"Winnie? She's alright," he said with a shrug. "Still got those troubles with her hip, so she doesn't move around as much. I have her all to myself now," he said with a smile. "She still manages to catch a wave of energy whenever our grandchildren come by. It's astounding! I don't know how she does it. One minute she's practically comatose, the next she's breaking the fucking sound barrier and bringing hot cookies on a tray."

He shook his head and rolled his eyes.

"And she never lets me have one; she cares about me so much."

"She's a keeper," Mundy noted. "How long until yer Big Fifty?"

"Two years," he answered, closing the pill bottle. "Let's hope I last."

"You will. Long as I'm here."

Mundy slowly rose up in his chair and leaned forward. His eyes looked like peeled cherries.

"Us silent types have to stick together. When I went blind, you were the one who told me to snap outta it. I was a fucking mess. It's like… the world was so bright and full of nothing. It wasn't dark; it was just… unusually bright. Like burning light that attacked me and I couldn't fight back, I couldn't reason with it. Heh. I suppose not even Respawn can fix some things. But you know what, it's good. It's good to know your boundaries."

Slowly, his eyes shifted to the former Spy. Those eyes of his were heavy and covered with a layer of golden film. The surface of the eyeball consisted of only one color, a sickly reddish brown. The texture was like gelatin.

"And I'm constantly reminded of 'em. Those bastards even gave me a nurse. She quit after I tried to feel 'er up," he said through a snort before his expression turned bleak. "They gave me a male nurse now."

"You won't try to… _feel 'im up_?"

"Not bloody likely."

_"Right."_

"Ya don't trust me?"

"If I trusted people, what kind of Spy would I be?"

"Ya ain't a Spy no more," he noted correctly. Adrien looked away from him.

"True."

"Anyone die lately?"

The Frenchman's head darted towards him. His eyebrow shot up in his hairline. The question was not expected, yet the man had an answer prepared.

"You won't be happy to hear this…"

"Nah, come on, I need to upgrade my phonebook!" He said through a laugh. "No, wait, yer voice was void, somebody _did _die! Oh! I'll guess! Was it the Engineer?"

Frowning upon the idea of making a death a guessing game, the former Spy shook his head. He was aware that the Sniper could not see his disapproval, but he had to do it.

"No. He's still in Texas. He's still alright."

"Damn. Uh… Demoman? I swear, how the hell did that bastard get to keep one of his eyes? Meanwhile I'm here, blind as a bat! Lucky bastard… he croaked?"

"No."

"Shit. Medic?"

"He did."

A radiant expression fell over the marksman. He grinned.

"I knew it!"

"He died a year ago."

The expression faded.

"Oh, crap, you're right. Shit, I forgot about that, may God rest his soul," he said into the empty air, crossing his heart. He began to regret his initial burst of joy. "Well then… who?"

"Lucy."

"Huh?"

"The mother of your godchild, the waitress… You know? We went into her diner once…"

"…oh."

Suddenly, the man was not as enthused about death as he was before.

It seemed like more and more death was coming from home. First his friends, then his mother. He flew to Australia as soon as he could- he still had his eyesight then. He went home and met his father, curled up and crying on the floor. He was devastated without her. The marksman tried to comfort him, uneasy about the entire situation. He was trying to stay strong, for himself, for his mum, for his dad that never shed a single tear and was then bawling like a small child. He did not know it then, but Mundy saw what he would look like in thirty years. Blotchy skin, skeletal arms that clung onto the carpet as though it would soon float away, the thin, lifeless eyes. He never knew the death of a loved one would have such an effect on him. He was almost glad that he cared for nobody. He was almost glad that he was all alone.

And just like then, he was sitting on the rickety chair, watching into the distance. The world seemed emptier at that moment. More so when he knew that Lucy was not that much older than him. She lived a good, carefree life. She had a nice family, a loving husband, a booming business, and she-…

No. No, he wouldn't think about it.

But he could still hear the howls and curses directed at life, directed at God, directed at nothing. A life went, another crumbled, and the body wasn't even cold yet.

He coughed.

Adrien looked at his watch with the corner of his eye. Visiting hours were almost over, he had to return home. He took the coat in his hands and stood up. Mundy heard the springs of the bed. He heard the heavy footsteps that made their way across the room.

"Spook?"

Adrien turned to him.

"Thank you," he said, with little explanation. "Thanks for coming."

The Frenchman bid him goodbye and opened the door.

The sun began to set.

* * *

It would be a couple of months when the Frenchman would hear the phone ring. He stood up and moved over to the telephone. His wife was sitting on a small mountain of cushions, telling her granddaughter that she shouldn't be watching a music video depicting a skimpily-dressed schoolgirl dancing in the hallway. She would change her mind when the schoolgirl turned around and she saw that the skimpily-dressed girl was actually a male comedian of the Weird Al Yankovic/ Jim Carrey variety.

She never liked those. But unfortunately, her grandchildren did.

Her husband answered the phone with a hint of irritation.

His expression suddenly turned blank. He listened to the voice on the other end, giving short, interrupted answers of either _yes _or _no_. He said goodbye and sat next to his wife.

His lip trembled; his hands ran through his thinning hair. He sighed and buried his head in the dusty gloves.

"Grandma?" Asked an overall-clad girl with a small bob. She rushed over to Winifred and placed her hand on the old woman's knee, looking at the man who tried to hide his face from them.

"Why's Grandpa crying?"

And he never told them.


End file.
